Hotspots
by Ivazel
Summary: This isn't strictly between the Arkham Batman (drawing almost entirely from Arkham: Origins. I know. I'm sorry. Kinda. Not really.) and Mortal Kombat, but they're definitely integral to the story and the two franchises contain some of the biggest players. Another important thing to note is that Batman and Mortal Kombat won't even have the most chapters. Others are just as imporant.
1. The Deal is Struck

17 July 2000

"Jesus Christ," muttered the guard beside me at the door. He wore a black suit over what I can only assume to be a bulletproof vest. On his pocket was stitched a P within a C within an O.

"What?" I asked, my arms crossed. Before me was a round table, and around it were perhaps a dozen business execs, discussing matters I wasn't paid enough to listen to.

"I don't think this much money has ever been assembled in one room."

"I think you're right. What are these guys' net worths? Two, three hundred million? More?"

"Actually," began the man who just entered. He had a strong jaw and dark hair, but his blue eyes were bright and intelligent. "That's just me," he said with a good-natured smirk.

He sat down at the only empty seat at the table.

"This meeting can now begin." He swiveled his seat to face the wall behind him. He pulled a small remote from his suit jacket and clicked the largest button. The wall slid up and a television distanced itself from the far side of its alcove within the wall. It lit up to reveal blueprints for what appeared to be a force field.

"This is an energy repulsion field. Semipermeable from the outside and completely impermeable from the inside. In addition to Arkham City, I propose we build it on what used to be Raccoon City, Gunnison, Colorado, and Archipelago Muertes, off the coast of Costa Rica. That's four different places we can put criminals with life sentences and no chance of parole, with plenty of space and no chance of escape."

"Why are we even here, then? Isn't the only entity you need represented the government?" queried an aging man, sucking from a medicinal inhaler.

"No, because I want to propose something else that involves you quite a bit more." Wayne clicked the button again, showing Omni Consumer Products' latest policing robots, Stark Industries' drones, velociraptor diagrams from InGen, and pictures of scenes from the hoax video of the former Channel 7 News anchorwoman of the results of the T-Virus.

"As representatives of your respective companies, I want you to decide by tomorrow whether or not you'd like to use these facilities to test your products. It is predicted by my experts that these places can be bought and that we can successfully introduce the entire population of United States life-without-parole inmates to these four places. All I would need is a single five billion dollar investment from your companies. There isn't one of you who can't handily spare five times that, and it would go one hundred percent towards these testing grounds."

"And… what profit would come from investing in this medium rather than using our own testing grounds?" asked the representative of InGen, an aging Indian man wearing an extravagant mustache and a frown.

"You could see how your products will fare in a truly competitive market; of course, you can still use your own labs, but by the contract I've written- which I've made copies of for each of you and your legal team- at least thirty percent of all testing must be administered via this medium."

Around the table, the executives picked up landlines from the table in front of them, faxing and calling their legal teams.


	2. Freddy's Punishment

Fall 1999

"Freddy's dead," Maggie Burroughs said with a smile of genuine relief.

Not quite.

Freddy's soul found its way to the depths of Hell, not a witty remark to be heard.

The only thing that died when Freddy's body exploded was just that: Freddy's corporeal form. This, in the eyes of the Springwood Slasher, gave him unending opportunity. His next and only step towards coming back to Springwood would be finding a way out of Hell.

Freddy, as suddenly as he'd been plunged into darkness, was resuscitated into light, albeit red light like in the Nightmare Realm he'd dragged so many into. He looked around, finding the setting familiar—a large room filled with machinery and piping, but there was something new… chains hanging from all about. As he stepped tentatively into a clearing in the maze of metal, he saw something above him that stopped him in his tracks.

Suspended by hooks on chains was the form of a giant in a hockey mask. Stuck in the ground beneath him, at Freddy's feet, was a machete, worn and rather dull from decades of use.

"The hell?" Freddy asked aloud as he felt the neutral gaze of the gargantuan figure above.

"Hell… indeed. It appears to me you've spent too little time here; taken too many deals with your companions the Dream Demons." The voice was rich and deep and hearing it caused Freddy's heart to beat just a bit faster.

"You, Frederick Charles Krueger, have overstayed your welcome in the world of the living. Your burning at the hands of Springwood should've been your end… but those Dream Demons thought otherwise." From the red-tinged shadows clinging to the walls of the room and the machinery inside, stepped forward a tall, gaunt figure garbed in an all-black leather façade of what a holy man might wear. His skin was white, his eyes completely black, and pins were arranged in a grid like a net over his head.

Freddy's next words were not quite as careful as they perhaps could've been.

"You know my name, eh? So that leads me to believe you know my work, especially on Elm Street? I am eternal; I am pain! Hell isn't a match for me. It's my very realm!" With his last statement, Freddy lifted his hands high as if conducting an orchestra, only to find his glove gone and his powers nulled.

"Pain?" The figure threw back his head and laughed a throaty, malevolent laugh, then abruptly returned its gaze to eye-level, advancing in long strides towards Freddy, speaking quickly and with great force, great intent put behind each word. "You know nothing of pain. Fire, blades, the snapping of the mind? Nothing compared to what you shall endure. Your realm is not Hell. Hell belongs to the Leviathan and the Leviathan alone! Your realm is dreams and nothing more. Figments of your imagination and theirs translated into their reality. Hell is yours perhaps in your dreams, but only there. Eternity, meanwhile," the figure said in a bit lighter of a tone, "belongs to those who can wield it. It is the Leviathan's greatest gift."

Pinhead pulled Freddy's glove from within the folds of his leather robe and put it on his hand, mesmerizing Freddy as he danced the blades here and there, finally stopping to press Freddy's head against the wall, flick his hat off his head, and begin the process.

Chains shot through Freddy's hands and feet from the wall he was leaning on, pulling him taut into a full spread-eagle position facing the figure. "I am the Priest. I am pain. _I_ am eternal." He dug Freddy's forefinger blade into Freddy's forehead while the burnt man screamed. The Priest began to slice vertically down his body, studying him as though fascinated.

The masked man merely looked on.


	3. The Reveal

17 February 2003

The conglomerate that first met in 2000 was reconvened as Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark stood next to that same television hidden within the wall. Both were grinning ecstatically as they waited for all to be seated.

"Gentlemen and lady," Stark said, nodding at Mrs. Yutani, whom had begun representing Yutani Corporation at these meetings because of their importance, instead of their company representative, "Mr. Wayne and I would like to unveil possibly the greatest single invention of all time." The television lit up and on it was a cylinder bathed in light.

"Teleportation," Bruce spoke excitedly. "There will be teleportation available between the four points we've selected to be our testing facilities. There will be three teleportation stations in each area, one to every other area. Once we introduce the inmates, we will tell them all that if they break the teleportation systems, there won't be anyone coming to fix them. That should provide adequate incentive to leave them intact."

"This, folks, is where some of your money's been going. I slash we always make good," Tony intoned. "The rest is going into this." He clicked a button on his remote, and there were live camera feeds to Archipelago Muertes, Arkham City District, Gunnison, and the four craters of Raccoon City. Around them were glowing blue hemispheres divided into hexagons.

"The force fields are operational. Two doors lead into each dome from either side. This is where new prisoners will be deposited for listing. Organized here, then let right into the wild. In cases of mass relocation such as the initial fillings, though, the outside wall of the force field is permeable. From the inside, completely indestructible." Bruce grinned. _No more Joker, no more Bane. No villains, only petty crooks. I can deal with that._


	4. First Shipment

13 March 2003

The truck myself and three others were chained to the wall inside of rattled around as it made its way down the avenue. I could hear cars to either side—a crowd. We were making frequent stops, assumedly at lights. We hit a pothole. All three of us swore like sailors as we each were mashed against the chain loops bolted to the walls of the back of the truck. The only thing they hadn't chained together were our lips. I suppose that's why the meatwall to my right saw fit as to initiate a conversation.

"I hear Joker's gettin' together a posse," the man next to me said. He was imposing as anything I'd ever seen. He was missing some teeth in the front and had an incredibly forward brow, with a strong jaw and full beard to boot. His muscles were gripped by the orange jumpsuit that was so loose on me.

"I'd throw my lot in with Penguin. At least he makes some fuckin' sense. You piss off Two-Face and there's about a fifty-fifty chance you live, you piss off Penguin you get at least a fair deal. You ain't even got to piss off Joker. That fucker's cold. He'll kill you for no reason, I hear," I heard myself responding. Why, though? I didn't belong here. I got a life sentence for one murder. Others have been convicted of more and been sentenced to less.

"I bet Two-Face is the best boss to have. I've always had good luck in casinos—" started a guy I only knew as Raphael, whom when he'd entered Blackgate was brought in in full rich-boy dress: a suit, a tie, and a real fancy felt fedora.

"That don't count, Raph, you make your own. That's why you's here," said the first man.

"That's irrelevant," replied Raph with a tone of intense distaste. "I say if you can skew the odds, go for it."

"Talk about skewed odds—how is it that all three of us are locked up, but that fucker that killed something like—thirty kids?—in the last twenty years over at Camp Crystal Lake ain't seen any jailtime? Only askin' 'cause that dome 'round Arkham is big enough that they got the forest to the south—Camp Crystal Lake's inside, I've been told." My eyes drifted from Meatwall to Raph and back again.

"I never got into the whole 'Jason Voorhees' thing. Not convincing. I think it's a whole team of people—at least three," Raph chatted, shaking his head.

"I'd have thought something like that, weren't for the fact that he was in New York itself once, yeah?" drawled Meatwall.

"Oh aye?" mused Raph.

"Yeh. Quite a sight, I been told."

The truck began to make more frequent stops than the ones I'd deduced were at stoplights. _Must be we're on line for drop-off_.

I felt the truck backing up and then it stopped. All was silent for a moment, save for the beeping of other trucks. As the doors opened, I finally noticed something I'd missed in the dusky darkness of the inside of the truck—there was someone else in there with us, chained just behind the cab on the wall.

The door opened and two men almost as burly as Meatwall stepped past me to bring him outside. It was only then I realized that the man whom had passed me was Michael Corvin. The one they'd been chasing nearing a decade ago. I'd heard at some point they'd caught him but I had no idea he'd been at Blackgate… or even Arkham.

"Holy shit," I managed to say before Corvin spoke.

"Where's Selene?" he pleaded to the guards. The guy outside with the clipboard merely checked off his name from the list in his hand and motioned for him to move along, the two men holding him pushing him roughly through a massive blue wall made of hexagons that must've been the new Arkham facility.

He pounded against it, his eyes sorrowful and his fists raging. Finally it blew him back and away from the wall and he collapsed in a crumpled heap.

All I heard for the rest of the day, echoing in the confines of my mind, were his cries of "I know you know where she is! She was with me! WHERE'S SELENE?!"


	5. Entrapment

25 March 2003

"We're nearing Camp Crystal Lake," Will observed after reading a sign that said "Camp Crystal Lake Turnoff, 2 Miles."

"Good. I don't know how much longer he'll be asleep," Kia said, glancing worriedly at the unconscious form of Jason.

"Okay, now I've just got to drag Freddy out of the dream world and we can get them going at it. Then we can escape," Lori recounted aloud, repeating the necessary steps to her friends.

"Maybe not so fast," Will disagreed. The van came to a stop before a massive wall of blue hexagons. "What… is this?"

Charlie's eyebrows scrunched together as he tried to remember. Then he jolted upright and snapped his fingers.

"It must be that project that all those bigwig companies are working on. They put prisoners in these domes—they're force fields—and then they just leave them there. I… don't remember what part all the companies had in it, but there were like ten or more that pitched in."

"Can we get through it in the van?" Lori questioned.

"I think so. Take it really slowly, though, Will."

Will inched the van forward as they passed through the force field. Blue light invaded the van as it somehow shone through the walls. They successfully got the van inside, but Linderman had them stop. "I just… have to check something. Go on ahead. I'm going to see if we can make it out of the dome." _I guess when they covered the new Arkham section of the city, the camp must've been inside the radius._

He touched his hand to the wall of light and it felt solid like a regular wall, but it was hot and it hummed with power. He slapped his hand against it. Not even a ripple.

"We're not going to be able to get back out… I guess we'll have to find an entrance along the rim," he muttered to himself as he turned and found the van had already left.

"Oi—there's a van comin' this way. I didn't know they had cars in here," Meatwall puzzled, pushing the tattered blinds out of the way as he got a good look at it.

"That's none of our business," Raph observed, not moving from his seat on the couch left behind in this shitty little rundown cabin.

"Yeah, Raph's right. Let some other fuck deal with them," I agreed, nodding. "There's got to be what, twenty of our Arkham friends here, dotted around the cabins? They'll deal with them."

"Shit, boys. They just crashed into that cabin over there—shit, it's on fire. The shit made that happen?" Meatwall said in disbelief. "I think we should at least take a look."

"You're looking, aren't you?" Raph joked, then chuckled to himself.

"I'm lookin' alright… I'm just not sure I believe what I'm seein'," Meatwall breathed. Suddenly he ducked and an instant later the windows shattered.

"—WILL PAY!" I heard. I felt heat coming from outside, and not just from the flaming cabin across the center of camp. I stood, walking slowly over to the blown-out window, and I watched, mouth agape, as a man clad in yellow and black, his form wreathed in orange flames, landed punch after sickeningly crunching punch on the face and body of a man covered in white body paint, with strange markings covering him.

"Is this truly the best you have?" laughed the painted man, though from the sound of the other's punches, he was not going to last much longer.

A scream from the burning cabin caught my attention, and then a disgruntled "What the fuck? Oh, shit."

Scorpion felt his blows land with satisfying thuds, and the symphony of breaking ribs was truly music to his ears. Yet he noticed his locale had changed. "Where have you brought me, sorcerer?" he demanded, gripping his chainspear with the fingers he wasn't using to point at Quan Chi.

"Somewhere that a certain someone will be quite interested in seeing you." With a laugh, Quan Chi opened a portal behind himself and stepped into it, disappearing as quickly as he'd teleported them both there.

"SORCERER!" roared Scorpion, flexing every muscle in rage, the flames surrounding him growing higher and hotter. He noticed something to his left: a blaze that wasn't his. Cooler flames, not hellfire. He tightened his grip on his chainspear and teleported inside the collapsing structure in a burst of fire. Inside he viewed a strange scene: three teenagers, with one boy collapsed and bleeding and two girls attempting to drag him outside, a hulking man in some sort of mask, and a man covered in burns in a green and red sweater. He noticed their weapons, as well—a machete and a glove with knives tipping the fingers. Interesting, indeed. They looked as surprised to see him as he did them.

"What's with the pajamas?" Freddy taunted, snickering.

"SILENCE!" Scorpion commanded, throwing his chainspear at the burnt man. "GET OVER HERE!"

The pointed end of the spear lodged itself in Freddy's chest, and he exhaled sharply. Just after it landed, he felt a hard tug and he went flying into Scorpion's waiting fist.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed, his nose badly bent and broken.

In his preoccupation, Scorpion didn't realize the hulking man was upon him.

Jason knew those flames. They were one of the weapons of the Priest before Jason escaped. How he despised those flames. He felt them eating away at his soul whenever they touched him. That's why he'd advanced quickly on the yellow-clad man, and had a hand about his neck, squeezing the life out of it while he had his grip.

Scorpion was lifted from the ground, and since he knew the giant had a reach advantage with his arm, hellfire coated his foot as he kicked up, connecting with his chin. As expected, he was dropped. He'd just unsheathed his swords from the scabbards on his back when he heard a voice not unlike the sorcerer's. But it was somehow… more menacing. Both of his two adversaries started to back away from the voice's source.

"What have we here?" the voice asked slowly. Scorpion turned to see a tall figure covered by a black robe. His head was covered in pins and his eyes were inky pools of black. "Not two, but three wretches undeserving of the life after death they'd been provided. The Cenobites will be overjoyed. Go now, run while you still can. Soon the rest of Hell's Army will come, and you will endure a punishment worse than any you've received before. It is only a matter…" he smiled, ushering them towards the woods, the lights of a city peeking above the trees more than a mile away, "of time."


	6. Depths to Deaths

1970

The sound of roaring water no longer assailed an ape's ears. Could it be, as his father had foretold, the years of the sun? The constant _drip, drip_ of water from the entrance of the cave his father had sealed in his last moments was gone, replaced by something strange, something bright—a miniscule beam of yellow light, something foreign for so long to the Ape Prince. He glanced around, positioning himself so as to see out of the tiny crack. He was blinded by the brightness for several minutes, snorting and squinting so as to see what's outside. All he saw was blue—not the blue of water, but lighter, like the sky.

Looking around in the near-complete darkness of the cave, where his family was huddled, cooing as they subsisted on the mosses and insects populating this underground world. The only imperative ever imposed on the Pictus Kong of Skull Island was to control the entrance of this subterranean recess that housed many of the different faunae on Skull Island, to make sure no one tried to move the rock out of the way until such a time as the sun reappeared.

Now it had finally emerged. It was Pictus Kong's obligation to move the rock—a ceremony that went to the ruler of the gorillas.

Pictus dug his fingers into the holds in the rock chiseled centuries ago. He strained, veins bulging in his face and tendons straining in his neck. Slowly, the rock shook and began to slide away from the entrance. Pictus had to grip the floor of the cave with the fingers on his feet, roaring as he picked up the rock that was nearly his size to hurl it away and into the receding waters. He glanced around, finding rotting trees, seaweed, and sand populating the area around the entrance.

The island had been underwater for thirty-seven years. Pictus's life was just beginning, and as his lungs breathed their first breath of fresh air in years, he climbed to the top of the nearest dune of sand, still wet from the draining of the water, to gaze over his new dominion. Seawater hadn't finished draining off the island, but he didn't need the water to recede any more than it had to view the other islands off the shore.

Giant landmasses to the west and as Pictus turned, the south. A mile or more of water separated Skull Island from what would later be known as Las Cinco Muertes: The Five Deaths.


End file.
